him by appointment, but he could not persuade her even to be the bearer of a message to Madge. He then determined to confess his fears. To his great relief Mrs Caffyn of her own accord assured him that he never need dread any disturbance or betrayal. ‘There are three of us,’ she said, ‘as knows you—Miss Madge, Miss Clara and myself—and, as far as you are concerned, we are dead and buried. I can’t say as I was altogether of Miss Madge’s way of looking at it at first, and I thought it ought to have been different, though I believe now as she’s right, but,’ and the old woman suddenly fired up as if some bolt from heaven had kindled her, ‘I pity you, sir—you, sir, I say—more nor I do her. You little know what you’ve lost, the blessedest, sweetest, ah, and the cleverest creature, too, as ever I set eyes on.’ ‘But, Mrs Caffyn,’ said Frank, with much emotion, ‘it was not I who left her, you know it was not, and, and even—’ The word ‘now’ was coming, but it did not come. ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Caffyn, with something like scorn, ‘_I_ know, yes, I do know. It was she, you needn’t tell me that, but, God-a-mighty in heaven, if I’d been you, I’d have laid myself on the ground afore her, I’d have tore my heart out for her, and I’d have said, “No other woman in this world but you”—but there, what a fool I am! Goodbye, Mr Palmer.’ She marched away, leaving Frank very miserable, and, as he imagined, unsettled, but he was not so. The fit lasted all day, but when he was walking home that evening, he met a poor friend whose wife was dying. ‘I am so grieved,’ said Frank ‘to hear of your trouble—no hope?’ ‘None, I am afraid.’ ‘It is very dreadful.’ ‘Yes, it is hard to bear, but to what is inevitable we must submit.’ This new phrase struck Frank very much, and it seemed very philosophic to him, a maxim, for guidance through life. It did not strike him that it was generally either a platitude or an excuse for weakness, and that a nobler duty is to find out what is inevitable and what is not, to declare boldly that what the world oftentimes affirms to be inevitable is really evitable, and heroically to set about making it so. Even if revolt be perfectly useless, we are not particularly drawn to a man who prostrates himself too soon and is incapable of a little cursing. As it was impossible to provide for Madge and the child now, Frank considered whether he could not do something for them in the will which he had to make before his marriage. He might help his daughter if he could not help the mother. But his wife would perhaps survive him, and the discovery would cause her and her children much misery; it would damage his character with them and inflict positive moral mischief. The will, therefore, did not mention Madge, and it was not necessary to tell his secret to his solicitor.